[verylongname]

Assuming the basic facts claimed by the author are correct, this is really bad. I'm not referring to the behavior attributed to the U Chicago professor and her husband, either. That might be exaggerated by the author (the account is only one side of the story) and, even if it isn't, strong feelings are not uncommon when it comes to controversial topics. Systems should work even when individuals or small groups of people behave badly.

The scandal here is the journal editors deviating from their standard procedures. There are procedures in place for re-evaluating articles which have been published or accepted for publication, and for retracting them if they don't meet proper standards. If the members of editorial boards don't think those procedures are proper, they should work to change them, or, barring that, resign. What they did instead undermines the credibility of the journals. How do we know that usual procedures are followed in other cases when they clearly weren't in this one (assuming the facts are as stated in the post)? Are there articles that are accepted for publication because of external pressure, over the objection of reviewers and editors? Are there other papers which have been disappeared without the expected retraction notices? What a disgrace.

[thraway180306]

The process, as told by the author, was that one of the editors invited to submit, and three weeks later it was published upon which the rest of the editorial board took notice and threatened resignation.

By that telling it was published practically on the spot, especially for mathematics where things are famously glacially slow. Browsing through the journal one mostly sees submission and publication dates separated by many months. Last published paper in the current volume was received over a year before. But this paper made it in three weeks.

So it was fast tracked by an editor. Editorial board could take issue with that, arguing it haven't gone by the review properly or whatever the usual procedures before publication are. It might have been put up on the web by the managing editor (since on leave and replaced in the interim) or whomever had the admin password, but editorial board to whom the journal's reputation really belongs hasn't deemed it to be their publication.

Of the timeline, author says he's uploaded to ArXiv in September, while by that time he was on revision 3 of https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04184 uploaded in March. What was added in September however was a piece of journalism in an appendix, that then disappeared in most recent revisions. Last revision was posted just 2 weeks ago, apparently there still were arguments to strengthen (or journalism to remove) before Quillette ran the story.

There he paints his work as "science" and some people including the editorial board as "activists". By Google however appears the same Ted Hill founded a site "to promote campus activism in general" and "to serve as a focal point for organizing activists" where he chronicles his long history of activism http://www.motherfunctor.org/CompleteHistory2013.php

[haberman]

According to the article, publication was approved by Editor-In-Chief Mark Steinberger, who founded the magazine 25 years ago.

The members of the editorial board did not just threaten resignation, but (according to the article) threatened to "harass the journal until it died."

[thraway180306]

I find these threats doubtful, I don't see the editorial board wasting their life on sustained activism over the years chasing remnants of something they helped to create and what would be served a deathly blow by their resignation already. The author however has a history of activism I haven't looked into, but that usually involves a spin. There's also the possibility of his correspondents' misguided politeness by throwing him something to chew on to diffuse the blame. Mathematical Intelligencer editor could be seen as doing that in a somewhat more intelligent way blaming the possibility of "international hype".

As for the description of alleged emotional states involved, I'm oblivious and not seeing the relevance. Recounting the events and actions taken sufficed for a horrific story. The author deemed it important however to make it into something even more colourful with threats of some unspecified future actions (how does one harass a journal?).

The managing editor you speak of went on leave and has an interim replacement. I can see that entirely appropriate if only because of how retraction was handled by deletion and overwriting, instead of a proper notice in place. This was extremely unprofessional administration, which is usually a duty of the managing editor solely. The other possibility I described is that it wasn't really published the usual way, which is even more damning.

[wegs]

Meh. This sort of thing happens all the time. It gets hushed up pretty well. What's unique here is author came forward with his story.

Academia is in sore need of reform. Especially elite academia has learned branding matters more than scientific truth.